NEW DELHI: In two quick days, Parliament cleared two consequential Bills before closure of the Budget session on Thursday to set up a constitutional body of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) to take over the appointments of the Supreme Court and High Court judges from the collegium of judges.
Unlike in the Lok Sabha where both the Constitution Amendment Bill and the NJAC Bill were debated and passed together unanimously on Wednesday, the Rajya Sabha first cleared the Constitution bill and then the other. There was no unanimity in the final vote on the Constitution bill as noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani recorded his abstention while 179 voted in favour.
It will be, however, another six months or so before the NJAC becomes a reality to replace the collegium as the Constitution bill is required to be ratified by at least 15 State legislatures before it goes to the President for his assent. The Chief Justice of India (CJI) heads the collegium and he will also head the NJAC and as per Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley that ensures primacy of the judiciary to continue in appointments and transfers of the judges.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who piloted the two Bills, also declared that there is “no encroachment into the independence of judiciary. He also urged the members not to mix up these Bills with an UPA-time Bill pending for accountability of the judges to curb alleged corruption in the higher judiciary. It will become cumbersome for NJAC to assign even this responsibility also to handle.
The Constitution bill provides for CJI to head the Commission, with two senior Supreme Court judges, union law minister and two eminent personalities as its members. The eminent persons are to be chosen by a collegium of CJI, PM and leader of opposition or leader of largest opposition in the Lower House, with the condition that one has to be either from SC, ST, OBC, minorities or a woman.
The judiciary had knocked out the role of the government (executive) in selection of the judges through two judgments of the Constitutional Benches in 1993 and 1998 that created a new collegium system of the seniormost Supreme Court judges headed by the CJI recommending names of Supreme Court and High Court judges for appointments as also transfers to the President of India.
As both Jaitley and Prasad stressed, the exercise completed in Parliament on Thursday is to restore the fine balance between powers of the judiciary and the executive as guaranteed by the Constitution.
How it works…
u The Constitution bill provides for CJI to head the Commission, with two senior SC judges, union law minister and two eminent personalities as its members.
u The eminent persons are to be chosen by a collegium of CJI, PM and leader of opposition with the condition that one has to be either from SC, ST, OBC, minorities or a woman
